Nicole Kidman: The world-renowned actress’s career veers wildly, but she’s never ignored

By almost any measure, Nicole Kidman is one of Australia’s greatest living actors, with a trophy cabinet that boasts an Academy Award for best actress, a BAFTA, a SAG, two Emmys, three AACTAs, three Logies and six Golden Globes. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her fifth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century, and she has graced dozens of Vogue covers. Not bad for the actor who first caught our attention with that shock of curly red hair in the 1983 Aussie crime comedy, BMX Bandits. The international breakthrough came a few years later in Phillip Noyce’s excellent 1989 thriler, Dead Calm, which saw a wide-eyed Kidman play one-half of a married couple opposite Sam Neill, who got stranded on a yacht with a psychotic Billy Zane. The role put her on the radar of Hollywood (and future husband Tom Cruise), and a slew of high-profile films ensued, including Days of Thunder and Far and Away, both made with Cruise, and Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. Even in those years, with blockbusters beckoning, Kidman often sought out projects based on the auteur behind the camera rather than how many people would see the end result. She worked with Gus Van Sant on the brilliant 1995 satire, To Die For; with Lars Von Trier on the director’s compelling, minimalist 2003 effort, Dogville; and the legendary Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut. Kidman’s latest film, Babygirl, just hit Australian cinemas on Thursday, and, like her collaboration with Kubrick, is a psycho-sexual drama. It sees her character, a high-powered CEO with a husband (Antonio Banderas) and kids, engage in a torrid affair with a 20-something intern (Harris Dickinson) at the company. Babygirl has set tongues wagging with its graphic sex scenes, many of which depict Kidman’s character as a submissive participant, stripped naked or on all fours, licking milk from a saucer. The movie received a seven-minute standing ovation at its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last year, where Kidman was awarded the event’s Volpi Cup for best actress. It was recognition for a performance that took courage, although this trait has been a trademark of the actor, whose work in recent years has been as varied as it has been prolific. Since 2017, Kidman has appeared in 16 films, mostly as a leading character, spanning wildly disparate genres, from superhero blockbusters (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom) to surrealist indies (The Killing of a Sacred Deer). There have been bloody Viking epics (The Northman), demanding roles (doesn’t get much harder than playing comedy icon Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos) and statement pieces (Bombshell, about sexual harassment by former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes). Then there is her work on the small screen, where she has been just as busy over the past eight years, starting with the 2017 hit, Big Little Lies. Kidman has appeared in nine TV shows in that time, and, notably, has also served as executive producer in all but one of those projects. It’s a far cry from the early 1980s when she was probably stoked to score two episodes of A Country Practice. However, despite this incredible success and maintaining a lofty celebrity status over a period of more than 40 years in the entertainment industry, Kidman remains a polarising figure to many, especially here in Australia. In a world where, thankfully, it’s now widely accepted that criticising a woman’s appearance is inappropriate, the 57-year-old Kidman appears to be the exception. As recently as Friday, the Daily Mail published an article with the headline: “What is wrong with Nicole Kidman’s earlobes? Star’s stretched ‘bat ears’ alarm fans - as cosmetic surgery experts reveals what can cause the condition”. And it’s not just the Daily Mail. Reviews of her movies and TV shows in some of the most respected media outlets often reference her appearance in ways that would be unthinkable for almost any other performer but are apparently fair game if one is writing about Kidman. Writing about Kidman’s 2023 spy thriller series, Lioness, a critic from The Telegraph declared the “one thing that lets the show down is Nicole Kidman as a CIA boss, whose frozen face these days is a total distraction”. This is nothing new. In a 2007 review of Noah Baumbach’s film, Margot at the Wedding, a critic from Salon.com devoted a lengthy paragraph to Kidman’s forehead. “Kidman’s skin is, without a doubt, beautiful. But it has turned into her greatest limitation, a boundary beyond which she can’t stretch,” the critic wrote. “We’re left to concentrate, for too long, on the great effort it takes her to furrow her brow. She finally comes up with something - two smooth little bumps between her eyebrows - but the effort it cost her just couldn’t have been worth it.” When an Australian media outlet publishes stories about her, the comments section contains far worse. It’s tempting to write this off as the tall poppy syndrome in action, but that fails to explain why Kidman’s equally acclaimed contemporaries, Cate Blanchett and Naomi Watts, are almost universally adored without such reservations. Veteran entertainment reporter Peter Ford has an explanation. “I think there’s probably two things,” Ford tells The Sunday Times. “I think, number one, Nicole isn’t always brilliant. She’s capable of being brilliant. She’s also capable of being pretty average. And, number two, when you are having the output that she’s having at the moment, where she’s almost becoming the punchline of jokes on The Tonight Show about how busy she is and how she’s in everything . . . there’s no sense of ‘event’ anymore. “She’s almost churning it out, particularly with the TV stuff, she’s just churning it out, and I’m seeing some fairly ordinary performances. “But, on other occasions, she’s capable of being quite extraordinary, so I just hope she’s not overdoing it in terms of exposure. You don’t want people saying, ‘Oh, her again’, so I think that’s part of the reason why some people might kinda sigh at the mention of her name.” Those sighs were particularly loud towards the end of the 2000s, which was the peak of the public’s displeasure towards the actor. Having come out of a marriage to Tom Cruise in 2001, Kidman had what many consider to be her greatest triumph on the big screen, as the all-singing, all-dancing star of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!. That earned her an Academy Award nomination and she went one better two years later, winning her Oscar for a wonderful turn as pioneering author Virgina Woolf in biopic The Hours. At that point it seemed as though Kidman could do no wrong — including getting hitched to country singer Keith Urban along the way — but a series of successive box office bombs in the years that followed deeply tarnished public perception around the actor. In 2007, an opinion piece in The Guardian pointed to 10 consecutive misfires, from The Stepford Wives to Invasion, and remarked “if only” Kidman would “retire”. The piece went on to describe the Aussie as “box office poison” and declare that “judging by your recent choices, I don’t think you’re savvy enough - or hungry or ruthless enough - to revive your career”. The following year, Baz Luhrmann’s critically panned Australia came out and, things only got worse. The Guardian again sank the slipper into Kidman, calling her “queen of the flops” and stating: “This is an actress who needs to be put in chic clothes in romantic comedies where she can be funny, and wicked, and drop a few of the clothes.” Rabbit Hole in 2010 was a solid outing, but it would be years until the actor had anything resembling a hit. In fact, Babygirl represents the first time a movie with Kidman in the lead role has crossed the $40 million mark at the US box office since Australia, and the scene of Kidman dutifully drinking a glass of milk under her dom’s command has seen her reach a new audience via memes on social media. As Ford points out, this is a reflection of the projects the actor chooses. “She’s always taken risks,” he says. “I mean, all throughout her career, she has been willing to take a risk. She’s wanted to challenge herself, and I don’t think she’s ever really just consciously gone out trying to make as much money as she can. “But, when you take risks, you also you’re going to have losses as well as wins, and, with Babygirl, it seems to have been critically well received, but she desperately wanted an Oscar, or at the very least a nomination, and she didn’t get that.” Based on her recent track record of film and TV, it might not be too long though until Kidman adds to her trophy cabinet. Whether you personally like her or not. Babygirl is in theatres now. TOP FIVE NICOLE KIDMAN MOVIES 1. Moulin Rouge! (2001) 2. To Die For (1995) 3. The Hours (2002) 4. The Others (2001) 5. EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) TOP FIVE UNDERRATED KIDMAN MOVIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED 1. Rabbit Hole (2010) 2. Dogville (2003) 3. Birth (2004) 4. Being the Ricardos (2021) 5. Dead Calm (1989)

Nicole Kidman: The world-renowned actress’s career veers wildly, but she’s never ignored

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